L.I. Takes Steps to Close Breach in Barrier Island

Published: April 30, 1993

WESTHAMPTON, L.I., April 29—
An emergency project to close a gaping breach in the Westhampton barrier island here advanced today as the Army Corps of Engineers awarded a $5.7 million contract to an Illinois dredging company that will begin work in May.

The project involves hammering two rows of steel sheet piling deep in to the sand across the half-mile breach, now named Little Pike Inlet, and filling in with sand dredged from offshore.

Some of the 1.25 million cubic yards of sand the project calls for will be pumped onto the eroded ocean shorelines near the breach.

Since a storm on Dec. 11, about 100 houses on Dune Road, west of the rapidly widening breach, have been washed away, littering Moriches Bay with submerged and partially submerged debris that has become a navigation hazard.

The storm punched through the barrier island west of a jetty field built by the Army Corps beginning in the 1960's. The jetties are widely blamed for erosion on unprotected beaches to the west.

Representative George J. Hochbrueckner, a Democrat from Coram whose district includes the eroded area, said the project to close the breach would be completed by late October, near the close of the hurricane season.

Officials and residents living near the shore of Moriches Bay said the breach changed tidal patterns and increased the risk of mainland flooding. But some baymen said the ocean water cleansed the bay of contaminants entering from the shoreline, raising hopes that the bay's sagging shellfish population would revive.

Steven F. O'Hara, a vice president of the Great Lakes Dredge and Dock Company, the winner among three bidders for the project, said the first step would be driving the sheeting across the breach. U.S. to Pay 70%

He said any storms that struck while work was in progress could wash freshly deposited sands away. "When you are working along the ocean, there is always that possibility," he said. The company also has offices on Staten Island.

The Federal Government will pay 70 percent of the project's cost, Mr. Hochbrueckner said, with the remaining amount paid by the state.

A separate project will pump sand from Shinnecock Inlet onto a beach to the west where the ocean washed over in the December storm and the March blizzard.

The washovers ripped out a section of Dune Road on the eastern end of the barrier island, making a commercial fishing dock and restaurants inaccessible.